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This story was submitted to the People’s War Site by Three Counties Action, on behalf of Win Lawrence, and has been added to the site with permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

1941

At this time I had a friend who was a nurse at our local hospital in Hitchin and she asked me if I would care for an 8-year-old girl who was about to be discharged. Apparently her family had lived just outside London and her father — who worked at Mount Pleasant for the Post Office — thought his family would be safer living further into London with the protection of the barrage balloons. During one particular bad bombing raid their house received a direct hit and his wife was killed. This little girl and her sister were both badly injured and the sister was sent to hospital in Cambridge and she was sent to Hitchin.

So this little girl came to live with us (my husband, my daughter and myself) and received regular visits from her father. At one of these visits her father asked if we would also look after a 10-year-old boy. His father was a publican in London and when the raids were on he used to have to go to the nearest underground station where he sometimes had to spend the night.

At about the same time my sister who had been suffering from jaundice died while her husband was abroad with the armed forces. She had a baby son who only weighed 3 lb when born and he was placed in a shoe box surrounded by cotton wool and the nuns used to feed him using a fountain pen filler. When he reached the grand weight of 5 lb he was able to come home. After the loss of my sister my nephew came to live with us but I was advised not to adopt him as this would mean if anything happened to my husband I would have four young children to look after so my parents — who lived over the road from me at that time — officially adopted him so he would stay with the family.

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